Staunton spectator. [volume] (Staunton, Va.) 1849-1896, 1887-03-23
The Business of The Country.


the financial and commercial interests OF
the country, are always wise and instruc-
tive, and can be read with profit by the re-
fecting farmer with the same inter est they
possess for the financier or the merchant
This service is rendered the business inter-
ests of the country from standpoint
which enables the writer to inform his
readers alike of the dangers of wild specu-
lation and beoms as well as to point out
the cense quences which follow in the train
of inactivity caused by circumstances which
ought to have been avoided. Whilst Feb
ruary was not noted for any general i'm
prov ement, the reactions during the month
adversely to business were temporary and
are passing away. The principal changes
Of favorable nature are improved pros
poets of peace in Europe increased earn
ings of American railways an advance in
hog products an end of the strikes in New
York ; decline in foreign exchange from
the gold-exporting point renewal Of ex-
port activity in our bread-stuffs and a ees
sation of European selling of American
securities.
The writer takes strong view of the
stake the financial and commercial inter-
ests of the country have in the bread-stuffs
yet to be exported from it. The deficit of
one hundred million bushels of wheat and
wheat-four in the requirements Of Great
Britain, and thirty millions of the same as
necessary for France before the crops of
1887 are available, are referred to as abso-
lutte facts. With the revival of the export
trade, three days alone of the renewed &C
tivity are noted as supplying nearly one
million dollars in commercial bills. Dur
ing March and April Of 1886, because of
limited exports of wheat, fourteen millions
of gold we're drawn from the United States
to meet the balance of exchange against
us, from which there will be relief in the
corresponding month this year, because of
!; the active demand, now restored, for our
surplus Of wheat and at better prices,
which will furnish fifty millions of ex-
change in our favor in comparison with a
much smaller sum during the exporting
season of Last year.
The arrangement of the stock market in
January had its effect on wheat, resulting
in giving the combinations in Chicago an
opportunity to raid the markets, dragging
the foreign as we'll as the home-market
down, and this was done in the face of the
strongest statistical position and the best
| export demand which had existed for years.
In connection with the facts here stated,
the following full text is taken from the
Magazine =
''This stats of things continued until the
last week Of the month (February) when
Europe came in freely again and took in
New York and Chicago 100000 bushels
cash and prompt shipment wheat, which
checked these bear-raids and steadied up
our markets, in spite of the SPECTATORS
The total decline resulting has been over
| 10 cents per bushel, by which amount the
country is poorer on all the wheat sold and
to be sold at this decline, most of which
was utterly needless, and engineered by
| Chicago bears who have done more to i'm
poverish the agricultural and produce COM
mercial interests of the country in the past
two years, needlessly, than all the bull ope-
rators did from 1879 to 1882 to drive away
our export trade. AS a result, there is a
serious discussion of the immediate neces-
sity of abslishing option dealings for spot.
in order to save our legitimate commerce
| and export trade, as we'll as our agrcultu-
raj interests on which the prosperity of the
whole country depends, from the ruin of
| these gamblers in the necessities Of life. :"
| These are words of truth that should i'm
in the prosperity of the country, which
must rest at last, as it has in all the past,
| on the agricultural interests. But for the
crimes committed in the interests of gam
blers, mainly at Chicago, when Great Brit
ian and other countries looked to the
United States as the main source of bread
supplies for their people, there would be NO
India now looming up with near three hun
dred million bushels of wheat upon which
to base successful rivaship with our own
country, and it is time, in the language of
the Magazine, that steps were taken to
shake off this incubus, which is destroying
"eur Legitimate commerce and export trade
as well as our agricultural interests, On
which the prosperity of the whole county
depends, from the ruin of these gamblers
in the necessities of life."
There are other features in the Magazine
review for February which possess great
interest, especially as it followed the fuc-
tuation in the provision trade, but We must
be content with leaving them off at the
point reached. The reader should con-
slider seriously the great loss the gamblers
in wheat have inflicted on the agricultural
interests of this country, not only by their
conduct in past years by the ten cents per
bushel for all sold in the last few weeks,
but as well for the loss to ensue in the mil
lions Of bushels which have left producers
hands during the same time named that
will now secure to the spectators an un-
righteous gain as the proceeding which
brought it about was specializing rob-
berry.
The estimate of the Magazine, of the de-
ficiency still existing in Europe, is greater
than we had supposed. With its view
prices must still further advance. and if so
there will be warm appreciation of it's
counsels from our section of Virginia.
though our surplus is but little as com
pared with the whole field of supply; yet in
many respects it is our chief reliance. Re-
viewing the great interests of finance and
commerce and the influence accorded to
agriculture in the aggregated values of the
country, the Magazine steps in with its
leading ability to hold up the farmers side
Of the question, and in aiding him to re-
ceiVe the true value of his labor. 1t stops
not in it's condemnation of the rings and
the cliques which have preyed upon his